A state Senate contest between Assemblyman George Amedore and Cecilia Tkaczyk is a statistical toss-up, a poll released Friday morning by the Siena Research Institute showed.

Amedore, an incumbent Republican from Rotterdam, drew the support of 47 percent of the the 461 likely voters surveyed compared to 44 percent who picked Tkaczyk, a Democratic school board member from Duanesburg. That’s well within the poll’s 4.6 percent margin of error.

“The race, in this newly created senate district that was seen by many pundits as a seat drawn for
Assemblyman Amedore, is too close to call. Tkaczyk has been through one election in this district, having won the September Democratic primary, and now she finds herself in the closing days of a tight general election campaign,” said poll spokesman Steve Greenberg.

The advertisements attack Amedore for his opposition to publicly financed campaigns, and suggest large contributions from business and real estate interests have fueled Amedore’s opposition to hiking the state’s minimum wage, and other measures. Amedore’s campaign has responded by denouncing the outside spending and questioning its legality. Before it was announced, Amedore — scion of a suburban house development company — enjoyed a large spending advantage in the district. It stretches from Amsterdam to Kingston, including Greene, Schoharie and parts of Albany county.

“Extensive money on both sides has been filling mailboxes and funding a seemingly endless campaign of commercials,” said Greenberg. “Now it all comes down to which candidate can better attract the few undecided voters and which campaign does a better job of getting their voters to the polls on Tuesday. As we move from the air war to the ground game, this race appears to be wide open.”

Amdeore’s spokesman Kris Thompson noted the survey still shows the Republicans ahead, and said the campaign “disagrees with the margins.”

The poll, along with surveys from two other competitive state Senate districts that Siena released, is good news for Democrats hoping to re-take the chamber’s majority, which is now 33-29 in favor of Republicans. In a Rochester-area seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Jim Alesi, Siena found Democrat Ted O’Brien with an 11-point lead over Republican Assemblyman Sean Hanna. The district has a five-point enrollment edge, but an earlier Siena poll put Hanna up 47-39.

O’Brien now leads 50-39.

“New Yorkers are clearly rejecting the extremism of Senate Republicans and responding to the Democratic message of keeping jobs in New York, raising the minimum wage and standing up for women’s rights,” said Mike Murphy, a spokesman for Senate Democrats. “Our path to the majority is clearer than ever as we look forward to a successful Election Day on Tuesday.”

Scott Reif, a spokesman for Senate Republicans, said his candidates “remain well-positioned to retain our majority.”

Siena’s third survey examined the 43rd State Senate district, now occupied by Republican Sen. Roy McDonald. He’s not actively campaigning in the general election after losing a close GOP primary to Saratoga County Clerk Kathy Marchione, but still drew the support of 29 percent of voters surveyed.

According to Greenberg, Siena’s questioners were explicit that “despite remaining on the Independence Party Line on the ballot, [McDonald] would not be campaigning for re-election.” He still drew more votes than Claverack Supervisor Robin Andrews, the Democratic candidate, who won support of 25 percent of voters. Marchione, the perceived frontrunner, was picked by 40 percent of voters surveyed.

“It’s not often that we see a major party candidate in third place,” said Greenberg. “Marchione is garnering the lion’s share of Republican votes, a bare plurality of independent votes and a modicum of Democratic votes. Combined that’s enough to give her an 11-point lead in what is surprisingly a three-person race involving two active candidates. These results can inspire a lot of ‘what if’ questions but the real question four days before Election Day is will more than a quarter of the voters actually vote for a candidate who has said he is not seeking to win?”

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